


Love the Ones Who Desert You

by darknesscrochets



Series: Rainbow Souls [2]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 18-Month Time Gap (Rusty Quill Gaming), Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Siblings, i can't not write angst okay, not beta read we’re presumed dead like the pcs, spoilers through the beginning of s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27648359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darknesscrochets/pseuds/darknesscrochets
Summary: Ismail has lost three of his siblings, three of his soulmates. He’s lucky, though; he might get some of them back.
Relationships: Ishak al-Tahan & Ismail al-Tahan, Ismail al-Tahan & Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan
Series: Rainbow Souls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999660
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	Love the Ones Who Desert You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whitewolfos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitewolfos/gifts).



There’s grey on Ismail’s arms now.

Grey when he eats breakfast, grey when he goes to study, grey when he meets with his magic tutor.

It nags at him, and he can’t stop thinking about it, that grey.

Ismail’s had his twin’s mark on his arm for as long as he can remember. Longer, really; Ishak and Ismail had been attached at the hip for most of their lives, and even their mother doesn’t remember exactly when they marked each other. Just that they did.

He always had a bright smear of yellow on his arm, where Ishak had his own green.

Until a few months ago.

Ismail knows marks go grey when someone dies. He had Aziza’s mark--the whole family did, and they all saw it fade at the same time.

They have a swatch of Aziza’s rosy pink in the house. To remember her by.

It wasn’t even a month later when Hamid’s purple and Ishak’s yellow joined it.

That was a bad week, losing Ishak and Hamid. The only good thing about it was it wasn’t on the same day.

Their family is already so fractured; Ismail isn’t sure they would have survived that. It’s hard enough as it is, with so many gone, and the world so utterly _changed_.

Ismail’s still getting lessons in magic. They’re just not as exciting without his brother, his twin, his _soulmate_ next to him, just as bored with the simple exercises their instructor had them doing.

It’s hard to concentrate on casting magic missile when the spell reminds him of Hamid. When every time he holds up his arm to point, he sees that grey where there should be bright yellow.

It’s hard to see the same grey on Saira, and on their mother, marring the rainbows on their skin with streaks of bleak despair.

It’s hard to wonder, every day, what happened. Where they are. Where they could have _gone_ , that Hamid warned the family that he might not be back. That their marks might fade.

Hamid _promised_ he’d come back, that he’d bring _Ishak_ back, even as his purple-bronze faded to grey.

He _promised._

Every day they don’t come back, it feels more like a lie.

So yeah. It’s hard. But Ismail believes in Hamid. He believes in his older brother, who changed just as much as the world did, in just a few months.

Ismail will get his yellow back. He’ll get his _twin brother_ back.

He just has to wait for it, and keep believing.

**Author's Note:**

> for whitewolfos, who said: “I would assume that Hamid’s twin brothers would have marked each other at some point, yes? I wonder what it would have been like for Ismail, with Ishaak gone for that 18 months, looking at the mark every day and wondering _where are you_.”
> 
> thanks for the prompt! it’s a tad short but hopefully captured some of their relationship :)
> 
> come bother me on the writing rangers discord or on tumblr as consultingjedi.


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